“In 2005, 472 migrants died trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States. More than three-fourths of those deaths happened in the Arizona deserts. What is so terrible about Mexico that people will die trying to get into America? The truth is, the way American consumers live creates terrible situations for those in Mexico.”
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In 2005, 472 migrants died trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States. More than three-fourths of those deaths happened in the Arizona deserts.

What is so terrible about Mexico that people will die trying to get into America?

The truth is, the way American consumers live creates terrible situations for those in Mexico. We want cheap products, so businesses want cheap labor. They can get that labor in America, but they can’t get it cheap enough, so they pick up their factories and move them over the border into Mexico.

There they can pay workers $45 dollars a week. Since the Mexican government has little in the way of environmental standards, factories can pump all kinds of pollution into the air, saving money on equipment.

We may have ended slavery in America more than 100 years ago, but we still depend very heavily on slave labor, though those slaves may live in other countries.

Mexican workers are enslaved by American businesses, who provide them with hardly enough to survive. Yet many Mexicans have no choice but to work in the factories – which provide the majority of the jobs in the towns on the border.

This is the dark side of capitalism.

On their measly salaries, the poor in Mexico have enough money to buy pasta, beans, rice and potatoes. They can’t afford meat or milk.

Many build their homes from waste materials they steal from the factories they work in. They steal electricity from overhead power lines. Their schools are suffering and their hospitals are crumbling.

This is the wasteland of free trade.

If you understand the conditions that Mexicans are forced to live with, and understand that it is actually our American way of life that causes these conditions, you might begin to realize why letting immigrants into our country is so important.

Our businesses create the conditions they live in, and letting them in is one way we can help them escape.

Short of rebuilding Mexico overnight, it’s the only way that many Mexicans have to improve their lives.

So next time you buy something made in Mexico, thinking about the terrible conditions the workers live with, and then think about our immigration policies.

I really can’t understand what they find so attractive about the land of the free.

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